There are tacks in my TV!

Earlier this week, the CRTC finally came down and made a ruling on fee-for-carriage, value-for-signal, negotiation-for-value, whatever buzzword you'd like to use, for Canadian over-the-air TV stations.

In essence, your cable bill might be going up, because the stations are now allowed to charge cable companies a price to carry their signal (as specialty channels already do).

Critics of the CRTC's decision seem to take two contradictory flanks - either it's a non-decision, or it's a TV tax.

Calling it a non-decision is ridiculous. For the first time since the invention of cable television in the 1960s, conventional broadcasters can charge cable companies for their signal - how is such a drastic change a 'non-decision'? Yes, the CRTC stopped short of mandating what that fee would be - but that's because if they did, they knew they'd get pilloried for too much intervention!

And speaking of that fee (or tax) - it doesn't exist. It's up to the stations and the cable companies to decide what they want to charge consumers. Cable companies aren't the victims here - the CRTC has made it clear that in a negotiation, everything would be on the table - including the preferential treatment that sees local stations get prime spots on the dial (i.e. CKCO on channel 12, as it is here). If cable doesn't want consumers to pay for the signals (read: doesn't want to pay for the signals), they have plenty of 'valued' things they can give the stations apart from money.

But, hey, if it bothers you that much? Go out and buy an antenna. It's a one-time cost of far less than the average monthly cable bill. Yes, you'll get fewer stations than you do now, but before long you won't miss it - if there's anything you really want and can't get via antenna, it's probably on the Internet somewhere.

This doesn't mean all is well with the Canadian TV system. The CRTC should still look at a 'skinny basic' cable package, digital multiplexing, and finding more ways to increase competition between Canadian broadcasters (and between Canadian cable companies). But it's a start.

Further reading: Jamie Weinman has a series of links to really good articles in two parts.

--Ryan